Mobile Home Rent Control Plan Has Few Allies

Nobody seems satisfied with the city’s latest plan to restrict mobile home rent increases.

Not the residents of Villa Del Arroyo, the city’s largest mobile home park. Nor park owner Dale Williams, who threatens a lawsuit if the proposal passes.

The level of dissatisfaction is not lost on city officials.

“I’m not going to please all the residents of Villa Del Arroyo and I’m not going to be able to please the owner,” said Councilman Chris Evans, who helped craft this suggested solution to a rent dispute that has simmered since the late 1980s. “This is a lose-lose proposition.”

The proposal, to be introduced during tonight’s City Council meeting, would limit how the owners of the city’s two mobile home parks can raise rents.

An existing ordinance allows Villa Del Arroyo, a 240-space mobile home park in the city’s eastern end, and the smaller 28-space Moorpark Mobile Home Park, located behind City Hall, to raise rents annually based on the consumer price index or by 4%, whichever amount is higher.

The suggested amendment would peg all rent increases to the index, which has hovered between 2% and 3.5% in the past four years. The city also will provide the parks with an explanation of the ordinance in layman’s term to give to incoming tenants.

But tenants at Villa Del Arroyo, many who live on fixed incomes, say the plan still does not solve their problem--rent increases they consider excessive. Most rents at the park range from $400 to $600 per space.

“That does nothing,” said Alice Rowan, who has spearheaded the effort to stem rent increases. “I don’t care if they want [increases] tied to the CPI or whatever else they tie it to.”

What residents want, she said, is for Moorpark to adopt a policy similar to one in Simi Valley, where mobile home residents can petition a mediation board whenever owners increase rents.

Simi Valley’s policy requires park owners to reveal their operating expenses to financially justify any rent hike whenever at least 25% of the park’s residents contest the increase.

Evans, who consulted the city attorney, said adopting such an policy could result in costly lawsuits.

“She believes we are asking for a costly and protracted battle if we implement a policy like Simi Valley’s,” Evans said. “Just because the park owner in Simi Valley doesn’t litigate doesn’t mean this owner won’t litigate.”

Williams’ lawyer agreed that passing such an ordinance could lead his client to sue the city.

“Our client obviously is not happy with the existence of rent control at all,” said Santa Ana attorney Glenn Mondo, who specializes in mobile home cases. “This is a further infringement of his right.”

Mondo said his client believes that rents at the park should be set at what the market will bear, rather than creating rent control ordinances, which Mondo argues are not equitable and do not work.

“We think it would be a step down the wrong road leading to greater government regulation of businesses in general,” he said, “massively increased public spending in terms of staff and attorney fees to defend the system, all being footed by the public at large for the benefit of a small minority.”

The issue of rent control in Moorpark has had a troubled history.

In 1989, Moorpark repealed its rent stabilization ordinance after Williams successfully sued. That case, however, was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court and the ordinance was reinstated.

In 1993, Williams challenged the city’s decision to resurrect the ordinance and forced a citywide referendum to decide the matter. Voters approved a return of mobile home rent controls later that year.

Evans acknowledges that the proposed amendment may need further revisions in the future, but thought the city should suggest some form of compromise now.